Wellies Wear Well

Wellies Wear Well

Wellies Wear Well

The green wellies brigade has become a slang term for more affluent country dwellers, not quite as disparaging as the hunting, shooting, fishing brigade but along the same lines. The plain black designs of years ago have been replaced by more fashionable colours, seen at outdoor events in all but the height of summer.

The quaint village pub, the village fete, and the annual hunt have all become venues for the Brigade. The riders in the hunt themselves of course are suitably attired in leather boots, often bright red riding jackets and breeches, but relations and other spectators at the event may well be dressed in those green wellies.

Life in the country can be very hard. The labourers and general working classes have seen property in the areas of their birth rise dramatically in price in line with demand from city dwellers for a weekend escape. That is just one of the factors leading to the reverse happening, the young rural population gravitating to the conurbations for more rewarding work.

More recently, access to public transport in outlying areas has reduced. Indeed the cost cutting exercises post credit crunch have put public transport very much under the spot light. Central government has reduced funding to local councils and unitary authorities, with the decision makers in those councils then needing to look at where savings in services can be made. Staffing levels, an immediate area of saving is usually the first item to come under examination when budgetary cuts are needed, but the provision of services themselves is under scrutiny. Public transport, its profitability or otherwise, is most certainly under threat.

The Post Office and Village Shop has found it increasingly difficult to compete with the nearest supermarket where a week's shopping can be done in one trip. The village shop getting only occasional custom for something that has been forgotten struggles.

Rationalisation of services has led to the closing of Village Post Offices, and it is a trend that will be difficult to reverse in these days of on line banking, and the internet in general. Some villages have even lost their local pub as a combination of a supermarket's purchasing power providing much more competitively priced alcohol, and the no smoking legislation affecting the size of the drinking population in public places.

It is not a factor that makes much difference to the brigade, the two car families with disposable income, whose weekend visits do little for the local economy.

Some trace back the problems of the village pub right back to the drink driving legislation of almost half a century ago. There was a time when townsfolk went out into the villages, the trendy pubs. Those times have faded, as the wine bar culture of town centres has captured the biggest part of the market in alcohol, the younger elements. Village life has changed and many would agree that it is not for the better.

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